Abstract

Never before have brands been under so much pressure as consumers take complete ownership of the things they buy and the services they use. That old notion of push marketing - in which a message of influence tries to either change perception or exhort us to spend money - has been consigned to the scrapheap Now we ask serious questions about value and choice, as well as interrogate the corporate credentials of those trying to suck us into their orbit. Brands no longer dictate their terms but, rather, they are dictated to through a myriad of new platforms and different ways of selling and buying - and woe betide the brand which is not nimble enough to see how its world has changed and where it now sits in the commercial hierarchy.